If you’re not watching basketball, you’re doing it wrong.
Fox Sports 1 will kick off its coverage of the new Big East Conference’s actual conference play with a five-game, all-day marathon that begins at noon with St. John’s at Xavier and ends with a 10 p.m. ET start featuring Creighton at Marquette. The featured game at 7:30 is surprising No. 11 Villanova at feisty Butler. What’s not to love?

The Big Ten begins its league schedule with No. 3 Ohio State at Purdue on ESPN2 (1 p.m.) and a BTN doubleheader featuring No. 5 Michigan State at Penn State (5) and Nebraska at Iowa on BTN (7).

The new American Athletic Conference has a trio of games on ESPN2, beginning at 5: No. 14 Louisville at UCF, No. 18 Memphis at South Florida, No. 17 UConn at Houston.

Sensing a theme here? Goodness, we hope so. League play is busting out all over this week, and so now seems like an excellent time to take a look at how the conference races should play out.

Overview: Louisville entered the season as a heavy favorite to win this league, but the absence of quality victories in nonconference play—and now, the absence of Final Four hero Chane Behanan—suggests the Huskies and Tigers have a legitimate shot to steal the league title. The Cards simply didn’t play enough serious opponents to give us a gauge of whether they’re properly built to win the league. The inside game is still a question, although it’s not certain what the proper question is. It could be: Do they have one? Or, perhaps, do the guards know where to find it? Louisville has a dynamic two-guard attack with Chris Jones and Russ Smith, but it needs more from the small forward spot as well as the interior guys. The beauty of this league is that the schedule is a double round-robin, so it’ll be settled fair-and-square.

Overview: The real intrigue in this league will be the battle for the title, whether it’s a three-way deal that also involves the Tar Heels or it’s strictly Devils-Orange. Carolina folks would argue their three elite victories indicate they’ve got championship stuff, and there’s a point there; but they’ve been beatable enough by others to suggest they’ll remain just off the pace. Although eight teams are positioned as owning chances for NCAA Tournament bids, N.C. State is a longshot and Notre Dame is included just because of track record. The Irish don’t have a tourney-quality resume now, and the absence of Jerian Grant makes it tougher to foresee them building one.

Overview: The Minutemen have been the surprise of the league and could position themselves for a top-four NCAA Tournament seed by posting a league record with 13 or so victories. But the three contenders listed all have demonstrated they are championship-caliber teams. Perhaps the biggest key for the A-10 generally will be avoiding the kinds of “bad” losses that often have plagued the league’s most prominent teams. Dayton already picked up one of those in non-league play, falling at home to a Southern California squad that will struggle to approach the upper half of the Pac-12.

Overview: Who would have thought Jan. 20 and Feb. 16 would loom as the most important dates on the Big East calendar? Those are the two evenings when Creighton and Villanova will meet. Certainly it is possible those two games won’t decide the first championship in the “new” Big East, but no other team has played at a championship level. Butler has avoided disappointing losses and was mightily competitive in those tough games, but the teams it has beaten would line the bottom of this new league. St. John’s still has the most talent in the league and on occasion has shown what that talent is capable of achieving. So is this more than a two-team race? The first look at the new league could be a blast.

Overview: If you ranked the top three teams in the league according to their shots at winning the NCAA title, the Badgers logically would be your third choice. But schedule is a factor in leagues where teams don’t play a complete home-and-home schedule—and what a delight UW’s schedule is. OSU at home Feb. 1; MSU at home Feb. 9; no return visit to either. Sparty and the Bucks have to play each other twice, of course. It’s not just that Bo Ryan gets to play an easy course, though. This is a dynamic and versatile Wisconsin team; not as individually talented as the other two, but that’s for the NCAA Tournament to sort out.

Overview: It could easily be argued that Baylor and Iowa State were even stronger than the favorites in non-league play, but the KU track record and the Jayhawks’ enormous talent stipulate the title race runs through Lawrence until further notice. And OK State’s success at Allen Fieldhouse last year and the continuing presence of Marcus Smart stipulate that it’s ridiculous not to believe the Cowboys at least have a shot at being one of those teams that shares the Big 12 crown with KU. This has been the nation’s best college basketball conference this season, and it should be a fun race because everybody will play everybody else twice.

Overview: The new alignment of the MWC has plenty of intrigue, starting with how Utah State’s fine program will adapt to competing against a steadier diet of high-level competition and including whether UNLV can recover from its unsteady non-league performance. But perhaps most compelling of all is how important it will be to several capable teams to finish at or near the top of this league. Because there isn’t the sort of heavyweight achievement among the top teams that MWC teams carried into the 2012-13 league schedule. You win this league, you’re a tournament team; there seems little doubt of that. You finish fourth, you’re holding your breath until Selection Sunday unless you claim the automatic bid.

Overview: Arizona has been the nation’s best team, but the Wildcats aren’t built to overwhelm. They don’t have the sort of offense that blows away middling teams. They have the sort of defense, though, that strangles even the best. That is why they’ll enter as favorites, but it won’t be easy to win on the road at UCLA, Oregon and Colorado, and they must visit all three. That could be the greatest impediment to Arizona earning the league title and a No. 1 seed; or it could provide a quality win or two that cements those positions.

Overview: It is strange to see Kentucky already consigned to merely “contending” for the SEC title after the Wildcats entered the year as the nation’s No. 1, but they came by this position honestly. The talent still is there, and the time is there, but they’ll have to prove they can perform as consistently as Florida’s Gators. Those teams will get two shots at each other, whereas Mizzou only has to deal with one game against each. Given the dearth of quality in the conference, that might allow the Tigers to steal the title the way Louisville snatched the 2009 Big East from fellow No. 1 seeds UConn and Pitt.

Overview: It hasn’t been uncommon to see dire warnings posted regarding Gonzaga’s pursuit of still another NCAA Tournament berth. It all seems a bit premature for a team that’s 11-2 with Kevin Pangos leading the charge. BYU’s persistent struggles and the collapse of Saint Mary’s at the Diamond Head Classic have all but removed the quality wins from the Zags’ schedule, so what they’ll need to do is dominate. Which they’ve done before. But their absurd WCC schedule closes with four consecutive road games, with trips to both BYU and Saint Mary’s included. If they get through that stretch with minimal damage, they’ll have earned another bid.